Light Crashing Into An Inside Wall

Poem by Alan Bern

Light crashing into an inside wall:

the last night of Passover, April 16, 2020

I.

Stumbling in hall
In the middle of life’s night
Falling against bone-white stucco walling
Cocking a deep-framed print
Such that that mount slips
Blake’s “Thou Hast Fulfilled the Judgment of the Wicked”
Noticing this angle days later
Leaving it askew

II.

“But thou hast fulfilled the judgment of the
wicked: judgment and justice take hold on thee”

Bible’s words addressed to Job while Blake wrote and drew
To Satan tumbling with Hate’s accompanier’s
To the words of Milton in the back-sounds

III.

The frame now straightened
But the print tilting does not help pour
Satan toward destinations welcomed
By the refreshened multitudes
While legion followers can be
Dis-attached only by rupture
Greed seems Hate’s greatest addiction
Without Hate’s fluid greed grows nil